Prices Paid
by Moon Faery
Summary: Elizabeth says farewell to Will as he gives into a call greater than that of the sea. JW main, slight WE.


Prices Paid  
Rating: G  
Series: Pirates of the Caribbean  
Genre: Drama/Angst  
Pairings: JS/WT; WT/ES  
Series Spoilers: None  
Warnings: YAOI (aka slash, aka yumminess), HET, angst and 18th century flowery language.  
By Moon Faery

Disclaimer: A statement created solely to save one's ass from becoming lawn for the proverbial legal mower. I do not own Pirates of the Caribbean. Believe me. If I did, the whole thing would have been shot in the nude, and it certainly wouldn't have been Elizabeth who was Will's love interest. All materials are used without the permission of their various owners. The only gratuity I accept is verbal (or written), and money doesn't even begin to enter the picture. However, this story line, original characters and plot are MINE. (Holds fic close to her.) Grrrr...

Author Notes: First person present tense POV - fairly unusual for me, but I've got to try sometime, ne? This just popped out of nowhere - my first finished PoTC piece, but I've another (much longer) one being spooled out as fast as I can type.

Summary: Elizabeth says farewell to Will as he gives into a call greater than that of the sea.

Word Count: 1000-something; too short for a fic, too long for a drabble. Woe is me.

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"I'm going to join Jack on the Black Pearl."

Those are the most frightful words I've ever heard from his mouth. Will looks at me, heart in his eyes and a sword in his hands. How can I say him nay? All I need do is say a word. A single word, a sigh. Even a look from me, and he'll lay down his fine pirate cutlass and forget this new adventure, this new dream. But the time will always come when he'll look back, and wish. Even if it breaks my heart, I cannot ask him to stay.

When he rescued me from Barbossa, when he came to me gilded gold with sun aboard a stolen ship, there was a fire in him that I imagined, hoped, was for me. But what he had for me what what he'd always had. A warm heart and a gentleman's love. Distant, but love nonetheless. So, from there I decided that it must have been the sea, that temptress that's lured many a man away from his home and hearth. He has pirate blood in him. He proved it well enough at the La Isla de Mueta, and every chance since, going down to the docks to lend a strong arm and ready hand, or just watch the sea. I believed that he'd finally realized the saltwater in his veins, and that I would in time become a seaman's wife. A pirate's wife.

I think, perhaps, he still thinks it thus as well, though now I know the truth of it. I have only to look beyond my beloved's eyes to see it.

The Black Pearl sits in the harbor behind my beloved Will, idyll in the water. Her decks are empty but of a single figure. Captain Jack Sparrow sits in her crow's nest, drinking his rum and likely humming that silly children's song I taught him. He sits, knowing what he is asking of me. Jack Sparrow and his search for treasure is legend reknown. Nothing has ever stayed him from anything. Not storm, nor soldiers. Not even death. What chance does a mere governor's daughter have?

"Miss Swann?" My long silence and distant gaze must have unnerved him. Will takes my hand and holds it. So daring for the gentleman I know he is. His hands are calloused, scarred from his work with iron and flames, and I can feel my eyes burn in those same flames as I realize that this will likely be the final time these hands touch me with such affection. "Please, I promise it's only for a while. A year at most. By then, Jack will have found someone to fill the place of first mate, and I'll return."

"No promises. Please, no promises. Not now." I hate how broken I sound, as if someone has taken a fine porcelain doll and shattered it in its clothes. Mayhap they have. He truly believed when Jack said that he needs a temporary first mate! In all my father's political games and social circles, never have I seen such a bold falsehood swallowed so easily.

"Miss-"

"Call me Elizabeth!" Oh, it hurts to see his face fall. 'Tis no game now, and he knows it. "Must I be a 'Miss' until I become a 'Missus'? Damn you, call me by my Christian name this one time." How my heart aches, and my hand within his grasp trembles with more emotions than I've the ability to number or name. "I don't wish my final memory of your voice to be of 'Miss Swann'." I am not crying, but oh, I wish I were strong enough to do so.

"Elizabeth." I can hear it in his voice. He's leaning, buckling, and for his own sake, I must not let him give in. "I'll return to you. I swear it. The sea is not so alluring a mistress-"

I pull my hand away before he can do something foolish, like hold it to his breast. As though the heart that beat there were still claimed as my own for all eternity. "It's not the sea I worry of."

The moment comes, and I can see the hope flicker out of his eyes. "If you wish it, I shall turn Jack's offer down."

Temptation of the worst kind. Is this is how Eve felt when offered the apple? So easy it would be, to beg, to shed that single tear.

Damn him. I wish I could stop loving him so. But I do. God help and forgive me, I do. "No, Will." I feel as if that blasted corset is on again, strangling me. "You need to do this, or you'll never forgive yourself. Go with Jack. I'll wait for you." Forever, if needs be. I shall remain the Spinster Swann to my dying day, if only to hold close the memory of the light that now returns to his face.

Knowing my fate, I press a kiss to his cheek. Oh, how I love him so.

I love him enough to let his other loves, his greater loves, take him away.

He wastes no time returning to the Pearl, while I watch from the cliff. The distant figure of Sparrow greets him at the gangplank with a friendly arm around the shoulder and a fresh bottle to share. Perhaps it's a flight of fancy, but I imagine that Jack turns his head and looks at me, then nods and tugs at his beads in a kind of salute. I raise my hand in reply, but they've gone down into the hold now, and I shall likely never see my Will again. When he returns, he'll be Jack's Will- his pirate, his blacksmith, his lover and mate. I'll only be Miss Swann, the love of his youth and a well-forgotten memory.

But, as I think these things, I can't help remember the glow of a soul made whole on Will's face. This damnation I suffer may indeed be a price well paid for such a treasure.


End file.
